Erik's Wonder Years
by Evil Clinky
Summary: Before he was the Opéra Ghost, he was a kid—-with lots of problems.
1. Prologue

_A/N: I began writing this back in 2007. I'd been wanting to do a dramatic take on Erik's childhood for the longest time. But then I realized it's been done to death already. So I figured, why not do a comedic version instead? Now _that's_ something I haven't seen around here. I apologize in advance if I am wrong and there is, in fact, someone out there who's already beaten me to it. _

_Type of deformity: ALW stage version_

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* * *

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_Before he was the Opéra Ghost, he was a kid—with lots of problems. _

_Crazy relatives, annoying neighbors, not to mention a physical handicap. Who _wouldn't_ go mad? Will Erik, boy genius, be able to cope?_

**Erik's Wonder Years**

**Prologue**

Henri was confused. As far as he knew, he was an only child. His parents never spoke of a long-lost twin, or perhaps the boy was long dead, and proved to be too painful a subject to bring up at the dinner table. Curious little thing that he was, Henri just had to know for sure.

"Did I have a twin?" he blurted out all of a sudden, earning him blank stares from his mother and father from across the table that evening.

"What do you mean?" his mother asked, snapping out of her catatonia.

"Who's Erik?" he asked right back, and it must have been the wrong thing to say as his mother's jaw dropped and his father started choking on his asparagus. Remembering herself, Henri's mother regained her composure and shut her ever widening mouth. But before she could parry the offending question with her own as to how the child had discovered this buried secret in the first place, Henri spoke up again.

"It says here he was born the same day I was," he explained matter-of-factly, producing a piece of paper his parents recognized as a birth certificate.

"That was hidden in my wardrobe. You were going through my personal things?" his mother hissed, pointing at the birth certificate with a shaking finger while her husband patted his sweaty brow with his table napkin. Apparently, the fact that their son was already able to read legal documents at age two had escaped both of them.

"It's not yours, it's Erik's. Who is he?" Henri demanded, eyes narrowing to slits. For someone who wasn't quite three years old just yet, he looked rather menacing.

His father, who hadn't said a word the whole evening, finally spoke. "It's you," he sighed without looking up from his plate. He seemed rather mesmerized by his asparagus. "You're Erik."

Oh yes, Henri was very confused, indeed.


	2. Chapter 1: What's in a Name?

**Chapter 1: What's in a Name?**

Mathilde was sixteen when she fell in love.

Born of Alsatian parents in the south of Belgium, at fifteen she had sought to return to the land of her forefathers. Every night she dreamed of Paris—the lights, the romance, the sophistication, all the wonderful things that were lacking in her own life. And every night her father would dampen these dreams, telling her she would never belong in such a place, and that even her spirited sister, who had struck out on her own a year earlier, had never met success in the French capital. _To the Parisians, there's them, and then there's everybody else_, he'd say. But Mathilde would not listen, choosing instead to follow her gut instinct, her green eyes blazing at the thought of adventure.

But after one night in Paris, she had regrettably discovered the stifling snobbery of the Parisians and had been repeatedly insulted for her Walloon heritage and called a clodhopper from _la civilisation des pommes-frites._ She packed her bags at once and headed north.

It was while working as a cleaning lady in Rouen that she met a handsome, dark-haired, strapping young man, Aldric, who was apprenticing as a mason and was three years her senior. "You build them, I clean them," she had quipped, and Aldric knew he had found the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. He was Catholic and she, Protestant, but they did not allow that little detail to get in the way of their happiness.

The same could not be said of their families, however. Both sides opposed the union and carried on as though their respective progeny were betrothed to a horse.

"A Huguenot?" Aldric's mother roared. "Not another Protestant! We already have one in this family and that's one too many!"

"A betrayal of the Faith!" Mathilde's minister father echoed, threatening to disown her and despairing at how God has cursed him with two wayward daughters.

And so the two besotted lovebirds sought solace in a modest three-bedroom farmhouse in the village of Déville-lès-Rouen just a few miles up the river Cailly from the Seine in the Rouen city center. Nestled in the northernmost tip of the village, the house was far enough away from the town center, far enough away from Aldric's parents' house, which he had come to loathe more and more as time passed, especially after his beloved father's passing.

Those first few months of wedded bliss were most blissful indeed, and the young couple spent their days (as well as nights) making frantic love and laying exhausted afterwards, only to repeat the frenzied cycle after every few hours or so. He told her of exotic lands and loved her fiercely independent nature, which shone in her eyes as she hung on his every word.

"One of these days," he vowed, "we will go away together, just the two of us, and see the whole world!" She squealed in delight as they kissed and copulated once more. The very next day she became sick, discovered she was with child, and their travel plans were put on hold—for good.

Now, as she lay panting and heaving, drenched in sweat and blood, and terribly spent after being in labor for nearly twenty-four hours—beginning on the very day the baby Jesus himself was born—she swore on her mother's grave never to allow that husband of hers to touch her ever again.

And then the babe came, and one shocking look at it made her even more resolute in her self-imposed vow of celibacy. The child, or so it appeared, was barely recognizable as one. Everything under his chin seemed to indicate a healthy, normal baby. Yet his face was an abomination of nature, a freakish and horrific malformation of bone, skin, and hair. He had emerged feet first, a challenge for any birth, and the typically stoic old midwife, who, in her half a century of experience had seen almost every deformity there was to be seen in newborns, nearly dropped him in her fright once he was fully out. Recovering just as quickly, she proceeded to methodically wash the infant as he gave a mighty squeal of disapproval. "Feisty little thing," she commented, and though she hadn't meant it as an insult, Mathilde took it as one and began to wail herself, joining her newborn son in a grand duet of shrieks and screams.

Just outside the door, Aldric was half-delirious with worry. The noise from the birthing room had terrified him so, and he, too, began to weep in his panic. He imagined his lovely young wife on her deathbed, thrashing about until finally giving in to the pain and exhaustion, growing quite still and quite dead. Oh God! Aldric cried. Here he was, barely of age and already a widower. Surely it was a bad omen, and now he was certain none of the women in the village would ever want to have anything to do with him. Perhaps the child would survive, and Aldric would have to raise it all by himself. But he would be so distraught at the loss of his beloved that he would neglect the child, who would grow up to be a criminal or a prostitute or both. And Aldric would lose his job and he would have to sell the house to earn a bit of money to stay afloat. He would grow old and bitter and then he would have to move back in with his mother. OH GOD!

Speak of the Devil, the old woman did appear, sending her raving son even more into a delirium. "What's the matter with you, boy? Get a hold of yourself!" she barked, her two daughters entering the upstairs hallway after her. Carole, the eldest, wondered why her brother wasn't inside the room with his wife.

"She doesn't want me in there," he answered, dejected. He had wanted to be by her side during the delivery, but she had absolutely forbidden him to come anywhere near her during the whole ordeal.

The old matriarch scoffed. "That's what you get for marrying a Protestant," she said, smacking her foul lips in displeasure.

When the noise had died down, they were finally allowed in. Mathilde was splayed on the bed, looking every bit the spent beauty. Aldric moved over to her at once, tenderly brushing away the dark curls that had adhered to her damp forehead. "Don't touch me!" she yelled quite commandingly for a woman who'd just been drained of all her strength, and Aldric, alarmed, pulled his hand back at once.

"Hush, my love," he cooed, "You're tired." He tried to reach out to her again, but she shot him a deadly glare that stilled and silenced him at once.

"Where's the child?" the old woman addressed the midwife, getting right down to business.

"A bouncing baby boy," announced the midwife, misunderstanding the question.

"Where is it?"

"A boy."

"What's that?"

"The child."

"Eh?"

"In the corner."

"…"

"I assume you are the grandmother, _madame_?"

"No, I'm the grandmother."

The two deaf old biddies could've gone on and on in circles had Carole not intervened. "Mama," she said, her booming voice painful for average ears. "You have a new grandson and he's over there." She pointed to a bassinet in the corner as all of them filed over to it.

Only the midwife hovered in the background and kept her distance as she'd already seen enough of the child to last her a lifetime—or what was left of hers anyway. As if waiting for their collective gasp as her cue to speak, she said, "What shall the child be called?"

The midwife was ignored as murmurs broke out among the women. The old grandmother, smacking her grotesque lips yet again so that the lower came over the upper and nearly touched her nose, declared of the child's ugliness, "He most certainly doesn't get that from our side of the family!"

Eve, the second daughter, clicked her rosary beads together, muttering a silent prayer for her unfortunate nephew, or for her coarse old mother, or for her spinster self, or for all three of them.

"We agreed—my wife and I—to name him Erik, after Papa," Aldric breathed, his beautiful blue eyes glazed over as though in a trance.

"_Mon Dieu!_" objected his mother, spraying those nearby with her saliva. "My husband will turn in his grave!"

"Erik, you say?" interrupted the midwife. "How do you spell that?"

"E—R—I—K," Eve offered.

"Over my dead body!" said the old woman, stomping her bunion-ridden foot in protest.

_Gladly_, more than one person in the room thought.

"But Mama's right," said Aldric. "I can't give this—this—thing Papa's name!" he argued, more to himself than anyone. "Not now anyway. Not anymore."

Over on the bed, Mathilde thought to go right ahead and name the child Erik, if only to annoy the living daylights out of the old woman. But Mathilde was too worn out to put up a fight, and so kept her silence.

"Name him after yourself then," Carole said to her brother, rolling her eyes at the whole spectacle.

"Over _my_ dead body!" he squeaked.

And the whole argument started all over again.

"Aldric, is it?" the poor midwife called out above the din of voices, thinking she did not get paid enough for her work.

"How about Henri?"

"That's the horse's name."

"So?"

"Yes, right. Henri's fine."

"Not Erik then?"

"Most certainly not!"

"And not Aldric?"

"No, Henri. Got that? Henri!"

The midwife was thankful to have finally escaped the circus later in the day. Honestly, there were far better things to do on a freezing cold Saturday. Not to mention spending Christmas tending to a hostile young woman and her abnormal infant, plus the rest of the freaks in that house. Though after giving birth to a child like that, who wouldn't be hostile?

Stomping over to the church of Saint Pierre where all the births and deaths in the village were recorded, the old midwife took a slip of paper, wrote down the names of the father and mother, then paused when she came to the child's name. What was it again? Erik, right? At least, that's what she thought the family wanted. Yes, she was certain of it. Had they not spelled it out for her earlier? So that's exactly the name she put down, and she was most pleased, indeed, congratulating herself on a job well done, a job finally finished, and mused that perhaps it was high time she retired.

When the new birth certificate arrived some days later, the whole house was in an uproar. The old matriarch practically foamed at the mouth, and she vowed, as God was her witness, to bring the erring midwife to justice.

But there was nothing they could do. It was official. The child's name was Erik, and they just had to learn to live with it.

They called him Henri anyway.

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_A/N: Pommes-frites are fries. Read an article on Paris some time ago that mentioned how Parisians refer to Belgians that way. _


	3. Chapter 2: Back to Normal?

**Chapter 2: Back to Normal?**

Months passed, and thankfully, the child's crumpled mass of a face became slightly more tolerable than the one with which he was born. The left side was normal enough, but the right wasn't as fortunate. The deformity stretched from his scalp—where a smidgen of stringy dark hair sprouted around what appeared to be a hole, the size of a teacup's rim, where the skull was visible—down to his twisted and swollen upper lip. Even his eyes were odd. The left was the same striking blue as his father's, but the right was the color of ice, almost white with just the tiniest hint of blue.

Nevertheless, word of the infant's appearance spread amongst the villagers like the plague, each retelling more outrageous than the one before it:

"A hideous and unholy changeling!"

"A scaly body and evil glowing eyes like red embers!"

"There was a tail, I tell you. A tail! And a forked tongue, too!"

Some of the more imaginative folk, usually the more inebriated as well, ardently testified to having seen the monster out during the full moon, crawling on its belly and feasting on small animals. More often than not, Mathilde had had to shoo away nosy neighbors trying to catch a glimpse of the so-called "Devil Incarnate." People made the Sign of the Cross each time they passed the house, but not before craning their necks to take a peek through the windows first. Blubbery Madame Beauchemin from down the street went so far as to knock on the front door, borrow some flour, barrel her way in, sit on the sofa while she waited, and say, "I hear you've got a precious new bundle of joy. Where is the little darling?" And Mathilde screamed at the woman to get out and stay out of her property and don't ever come knocking for flour again or she'll tell the Gendarmes who's been stealing those little cakes from the patisserie when the pastry chef wasn't looking.

The old woman came to visit everyday during the first couple of months since the child's arrival, to make certain his parents, and especially his Protestant mother, were raising him properly and rearing him in the Catholic faith. "Just because he looks like the Devil doesn't mean he should be brought up like it," the old woman had said.

"You do know what's wrong with him, don't you?" she spoke up again one morning. "It's his neck. It's supposed to be a barrier but it doesn't seem to be working. Otherwise the sins of his body would not have been able to cross over to his head and poison it like that. It's his neck, I tell you!"

"Mama, you're living in the Dark Ages," Aldric had replied.

"Or perhaps it's his liver," she had continued as though her son hadn't interrupted her. "The liver is the seat of the soul. Maybe some malevolent spirit has lodged itself in his liver."

"Mama, please."

"It's either his neck or his liver or he must have done something to deserve this."

"What could he have possibly done? He's a newborn, for God's sake!"

"Do not take—the—Name—of—the—Lord—thy—God—in—vain!" the old woman had seethed, clocking her blasphemous son in the head repeatedly with her voluminous bible. "It must have been something _you_ have done then! Taking the Lord's Name in vain like that, no wonder your seed is defective!"

Indeed, at first they had approached the infant's disfigurement as some form of demonic possession and had attempted to cure it with various incomprehensible chants and clanking talismans. When those didn't work, the leeches were brought in at the old woman's command and the bloodletting commenced. "The leeches got rid of my gout," she said, so naturally, in the old woman's mind, they could get rid of birth defects, too.

And so it was that the first bit of music young Erik had ever heard was an exorcism chant, and he spent much of his early days with blood-sucking worms plastered all over his warped face in the vain hope that he would be healed. When that didn't work either, his Aunt Carole had finally said, "Face it, he's just plain ugly." And that declaration seemed to have been everyone's wake-up call, for they had given up their futile efforts and had the child baptized at last.

The old woman's visits became less and less frequent afterwards, much to the young couple's relief. Their son's affliction was more than enough to deal with without Aldric's crazy old mother joining in the fray.

Today, no such luck. The old woman made an appearance and now she sat by the window, sipping tea made from Lord knows what weeds grew in her backyard, which she picked and boiled herself and which she carried with her wherever she went. "The Elixir of Life," she called it, saying it was her secret to eternal youth and beauty.

Mathilde wouldn't dare touch the stuff.

Teacup in her trembling, arthritic hand, the scalding contents spilled to and fro, though her bony and calloused fingers seemed rather oblivious to the pain. For a woman of her small size, not to mention her advanced age, she was freakishly strong. She moved her own furniture about when cleaning house, and then pushed them right back into place afterwards. She hitched the wagon to the horse herself when she had errands to run. Or when the horse wasn't feeling very cooperative, the old woman would curse him to Hell, stomp off, and return on foot with the heavy groceries in tow. The sight of a tiny field mouse, however, could send her into a fit of caws like a murder of crows in a commotion.

Across the table from the old woman was her middle child, Eve, with her rosary in perpetual motion and her head bowed, as though she were in constant penance for everything her mother said and did. A tiny wisp of a woman herself, Eve was every bit her sister's foil. Where Carole had a full figure, Eve was skin and bones. Where Carole had bright blue eyes and a head of chestnut curls, Eve had dull blue eyes and straight black hair that fell limply to her waist when her tight bun was unraveled. And where Carole was assertive and opinionated, Eve would rather be silent and keep her thoughts to herself. Devoted daughter that she was, she had never married. Instead, she followed the old woman everywhere like a shadow and was perhaps the only person in the family who could actually tolerate her. Oddly and thankfully enough, despite being exposed to her mother on a daily, almost noxious, basis, she did not seem to develop any of the old woman's insufferable idiosyncrasies. She preferred instead to pray and disappear into the background. She was the only one among Aldric's family with whom Mathilde could actually get along, because they all had such big, hyperactive mouths, whereas Eve hardly ever said a word.

Looking up from her rosary, Eve caught sight of the tiny figure behind the wooden bars of the sleigh bed at the far end of the room. His mismatched eyes seemed to be studying her just as thoroughly, and she could not suppress the shudder that swept up and down her spine.

"There's evil in that child," the old woman sneered, beady eyes narrowing as she surveyed her grandson from where she was perched. "I can sense it."

Across from the two women sat Erik, staring back at them and sucking his thumb.


	4. Chapter 3: A Fast Learner

**Chapter 3: A Fast Learner**

The one-of-a-kind tombstone was inscribed thus:

_'Tis somber autumn's turn to bloom  
'Fore all the frosted earth doth loom  
'Tis somber autumn's time anew  
We woeful hearts bid thee adieu._

Only it wasn't autumn and it most certainly wasn't somber.

It was the height of spring, every leaf at its greenest, every bud out in full bloom, every bird chirping madly to impress its mate. And here they were at the cemetery, paying their respects to the old patriarch like they've been doing on this day for the past three years. They came every autumn, too, as though to honor the tombstone more than the dead man beneath it.

It all started when the old woman had gone to market one autumn day during the course of the old man's illness some years back. Upon heading home, she had encountered the undertaker in the street. Slightly younger than herself, with a wide girth and a balding pate, he had seemed despondent and quite cross. That is, as despondent and cross as a man in his profession can get anyway. The reason for his grim disposition, it had turned out, was that in honor of his ailing mother-in-law's eightieth birthday, and believing she would not live to see the coming winter, he had decided to gift her with the most exquisite tombstone you ever did see. Made of solid granite, the two-foot high, twelve-sided column was to be placed at the head of her grave. Viewed from above, the monument had the shape of a cross rising out of the earth as though to show God, "X marks the spot." And at the base of the structure, there was a lovely little inscription which the undertaker had proudly written himself.

"It's avant-garde! No one else has one like it!" he had raved as he presented the object to his wife and bedridden mother-in-law.

"And no one in this family will!" Madame undertaker had fumed, ordering her husband to get rid of the atrocity at once. (And as if to punish her cheeky son-in-law for this little stunt, the undertaker's mother-in-law made a miraculous recovery and lived for another thirteen years, much to his chagrin.)

So now the miserable undertaker was stuck with a very expensive, very avant-garde, and very useless grave marker. He would have put it up for sale, but his wife had told the story to everyone in town, and so nobody wanted to come near it, fearing it would bring bad luck to use a gravestone that had been meant for another. When the undertaker attempted to return it to its creator, his friend, the tombstone maker, refused to give him a refund, saying there was an inscription on it already and there's no eraser for granite and what kind of a fool would buy the blasted thing now?

"I'll buy it," said the old woman.

Baring her fangs at the scent of a great bargain, the old woman had struck a deal. To hell with superstition. For just half the price he'd originally paid for it, the undertaker had been more than willing to give the thing up. And the old woman must have thought herself very clever, indeed, to have found the perfect tombstone for her dying husband at such a ridiculously low price. Think of it! The only granite marker in a sea of crumbling stone. Why, they would be the envy of every soul, living and dead, in the entire village. Right then and there she handed over the payment to the undertaker, whose mood had improved significantly, and who had agreed to hold the tombstone for her in his funeral parlor for the time being. There was the tiny matter of the inscription, but the old woman's husband was getting weaker by the day, and she was quite certain he wouldn't live long enough to see the last leaf fall.

Of course, the old woman wasn't always right on the mark, despite her claims to the contrary. As the end of autumn approached, she became more and more anxious. On the last day itself and the old man was still very much alive, for reasons unknown to him and everyone else, his enterprising old wife had broken out in a cold sweat. By the time winter came along, she despaired.

Then, with a glimmer of hope in her beady gray eyes, the old woman realized her husband was rather strong after all. Surely he would live another year, well into the next autumn, and that steal of a tombstone would finally be put to good use.

The old man died in the spring, a good several months short of the target date, and when the old woman had wept and wailed at his bedside, she secretly mourned the loss of a perfectly good tombstone. It was granite, after all. And so avante-garde.

So here they were three years later, gathered at the cemetery on a cheery springtime morning, despite what was etched on the stone. It was the family's first official gathering since Erik's birth a little over a year ago, though he and his mother were noticeably absent. It was decided he not be brought out in public, and Mathilde stayed behind to prepare a simple feast for the occasion. After saying a short prayer at the grave, Aldric, Eve, Carole, her husband and their three children, led by the old matriarch, made their way out of the cemetery and back to the house.

Carole's youngest, six-year-old Damien, having whined about starving the entire way back, was first to run into the house and make a mad dash for the dinner table. Upon passing through the small sitting room, the sleigh bed in the corner would've gone unnoticed, if Damien had not heard a soft gurgling noise emanating from it. Curiosity getting the better of him, the boy approached, and as he laid eyes on his little cousin for the very first time, he gasped in horror and whispered, "_Merde_, you're one ugly baby!"

As the grownups filed in one by one, Damien fled to the adjacent room and took a less than graceful seat at the head of the table, fork and knife at the ready.

"Move, boy!" the old woman barked at him, "You're in my seat!"

Damien vacated the place, but not before letting loose a string of profanities under his breath too shocking to repeat and too low for his grandmother's old ears to catch.

"What was that?" said the old woman. "Come here, you little hellion. What did you just say?"

"Nothing, grandmother," said Damien, innocently blinking up at her. "I said I must give up my seat because you, dear grandmother, deserve the utmost respect."

"If I ever catch you using foul language, I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to the crows."

As everyone washed up and sat themselves around their meal, silence fell upon them as they bowed their heads to thank the Lord for such precious bounty laid out before them. As expected, the old woman took it upon herself to lead the prayer, and Mathilde swore it was like witnessing the Devil say Grace.

But as the old woman opened her mouth to speak, a small but forceful voice beat her to the punch.

"_Merde_."

Heads turned simultaneously in the direction of the sleigh bed at the far end of the other room. The silence that befell the household afterwards was heavier than a granite tombstone. Eyes bulged, jaws dropped, and Erik thought they all looked so comical he just had to giggle.

All at once, sound returned and everyone came alive like never before. Eve's rosary beads clicked at record speed, Carole chided her brother for his son's appalling vocabulary, Mathilde explained how the child had never spoken before this moment, Damien could hardly contain his laughter, Aldric was torn between laughing himself and hiding in mortification, and the livid old woman declared yet again that this was further proof of the child's evil origins and that he must be stopped at all costs.

* * *

_Awww, little Ewik speaks his first word. =D _

_I assume they spoke Norman in Rouen during that time? But I don't know the Norman word for 'shit', so the French one will have to do. ;D_


	5. Chapter 4: A Gruesome Discovery

**Chapter 4: A Gruesome Discovery**

The unearthly noise was beginning again. Erik had first heard it about a week ago, and it seemed to be coming at him from all directions—outside his bedroom door, through the thin walls, even up from underneath the floor. Indeed, the floorboards seemed to quake beneath his bed. He imagined a hulking creature, fierce and fanged, leaving a trail of foul greenish saliva dripping in massive gobs in its wake. It moaned and grunted for the blood of little children, and scratched away at the useless wooden partitions that kept him safe—for now. Its heavy breathing cast thick clouds of fog, concealing itself from its potential prey, till the smoke cleared and it was too late to even scream at the sight of it.

Even in his dreams, he wasn't spared. During those nights when he was fortunate enough to have fallen asleep before the noise came round—or despite it—Erik dreamed that the creature had finally found him cornered and cowering in his bedroom. It was every bit as terrifying as he'd imagined, but bigger and with more hair. Its teeth were the size of his mother's kitchen knives and its razor-sharp, dagger-like claws reached out toward him as he covered his face in his fright. Erik waited with bated breath for his impending doom, when the monster's fangs would meet the back of his neck and chomp down hard, taking his head with it. When it did not happen, he dared to part his fingers to take a peek at what the predator was up to, only to find it sprinkling salt and pepper on his tiny form. Well, Erik was quite insulted that the monster would deem it necessary to add seasoning. Apparently, even horrible flesh-eating beasts had gastronomic standards. And then it bit his arm to have a taste, and Erik woke up screaming.

Oh, how he hated the noise!

It didn't help that his cousin Damien had told him not too long ago that such a monster did in fact exist, that it came in the night murdering infants and especially weak, disfigured little boys. "Or perhaps it won't touch you," Damien had said. "Perhaps it'll think you're its offspring!"

Erik glanced toward his bedside table, which was really nothing more than an overturned wooden crate. On top of it rested his mask. It was an old pillowcase his mother had thrust at him once he was old enough to understand simple instructions. It had small holes cut out for his eyes, nostrils and mouth, and his mother had also altered it so that the opening had a drawstring that could be pulled and fastened round his neck to make dead sure it would never come off by accident if Erik so much as bent his head a little too low or looked up a little too high. She had also warned him never, under any circumstances, to take it off or there would be hell to pay.

"But why?" he had asked her, not fully comprehending the need for the object.

"Why? Because no one wants to see your ugly face. That's why," she had told him quite bluntly. It did not even occur to her to include the thing in the wash, so day in and day out, Erik was forced to wear the dirty bag over his head. Every night, however, he would remove his mask before going to bed. Having a bumpy, uneven face was uncomfortable enough as it was without a smelly old pillowcase rubbing against it.

A particularly loud groaning sound sent Erik deeper into the bedcovers. He could feel the sting of nature's beckoning between his legs, but he wouldn't dare emerge. He would rather suffer through it and hold his peace than make himself known to the unseen fiend. Besides, in this position, legs twisted tight, it was somewhat easier for him to cope with the pressure of the impending flow.

_If I curl up any further,_ he thought to himself, _I'll be inside out._

And then, in his frustration at having to postpone relieving himself, young Erik began to rationalize. Why is it he's been hearing the noises for about a week now and yet, no monster has ever shown itself, let alone bare its gruesome teeth for a juicy bite out of him?

Mustering enough courage, Erik managed to uncoil himself from the sheets, stick his head out from under the covers, and survey his surroundings. Cool moonlight sifted in through crisscrossing tree branches outside his window, casting eerie yet comforting dark shapes upon the floor and ceiling. To a two-year-old, nearly three, they looked like swordsmen, jabbing, slashing, riposting, and making the otherwise bare room come alive in a bloodless battlefield of shadows. He could spend hours watching them, guessing at the eventual victor, and not once was the outcome ever the same. He did not fear them, these twiggy warriors of the night—until the noises began and the odd shapes seemed rather sinister all of a sudden. Now he wished only to have his swordsmen back, and with a newfound sense of purpose, Erik got out of bed to investigate.

He proceeded to the lavatory first to empty his bursting bladder. He had never been provided with a chamber pot in his room as Mathilde flat out refused to clean up after him, and so Erik was forced pretty early on to learn to control his various bodily functions. Once, when he was younger, he had made the mistake of wetting himself—and his mother's precious rug in the living room—and he was put to bed without supper. They, as well as Erik, found that hunger had its uses after all, and he was toilet-trained almost immediately afterward.

Now he found it at last! The source of the terrible noise that had been tormenting him for several nights now. And what a horrible sight it was, indeed. Right there, upon his parents' bed, his father's nude backside glistened in the moonlight and stared back at him defiantly, moving up and down, this way and that. His mother writhed underneath, her white legs entwined around the man's waist, and she clung to him for dear life as they both moaned and groaned, their strange movements seeming to cause them much pain and exhaustion. What in the world were they doing? And at this hour of the night? Did they not know they were giving him nightmares?

"Mama?" Erik called out, and his parents became still in an instant. Mathilde let out a less than ladylike yelp upon seeing the child in the doorway, and Aldric scrambled to cover themselves up, albeit quite unsuccessfully. Erik noticed his papa's large wee-wee seemed to be withering.

"Where is your mask?" Mathilde demanded, sounding considerably less dignified and less threatening than she usually does. Her hair was wild and everywhere at once, and she struggled with one hand to keep the damp strands out of her equally drenched face, while the other hand held a coverlet to her chest.

There she was, naked and panting and carrying on as though she had just been caught in the act of wrongdoing, and she was asking him about his mask. "I took it off," Erik answered. "I can't breathe when I sleep with it on. What are you and Papa doing?"

Even in the minimal light, it was clear Aldric's cheeks and ears were burning ever so intensely; just a little more and the room would have been sufficiently illuminated by them.

"Back to bed. Now!" Mathilde roared, forgetting her awkward predicament for the moment as she arose and, blanket wrapped loosely around her, made for the doorway. Erik scampered off in the direction of his room as the slamming of a door reverberated behind him.

Now that he had discovered the source of his nightly fears, Erik wasn't so sure whether at all he was relieved, or even more disturbed.

* * *

_Well, no wonder Erik's so screwed up. ;P_

_Sorry this took so long. Real life sucks._

_Thank you to Mominator/Barb, Noremac Ratsiw and Nat for the comments!_


	6. Chapter 5: Curiouser and Curiouser

**Chapter 5: Curiouser and Curiouser**

'Twas the Day of Ashes, a day of reflection, remorse, penance, and Mathilde underwent all three, in that order, as she spread her legs and went into labor.

A nubile young woman can only stay celibate for so long. And a nubile young woman who has been disregarding her vow of celibacy night after night can only go so far without expecting to become pregnant—again. This time, however, the birth was much easier, less troublesome, but fraught with more concern and trepidation should the babe turn out to be just like the one before it.

Once again, the old woman arrived in time for the birth, after disappearing from Aldric and Mathilde's lives for over two blissful years to tend to her busy household, where Carole's eldest, Christophe, had started a rapidly growing brood of his own. For the old woman, this meant more mouths to feed and yet more souls to save.

Not since that fateful morning when Erik had scandalized the whole family with his newfound power of speech did the old woman show herself. She became very scarce afterward, which was just the way her son and daughter-in-law liked it. And though Aldric continued to see her at the old man's grave twice a year, never again was the feast after each graveyard visit held at his and Mathilde's house. But a birth was something the old woman never missed, believing her presence to be indispensable, and she embedded herself in the event like a malignant tumor. This time, she had brought along her own posse of—in her utterly unassailable opinion—more competent midwives to deal with the situation. Pen and paper were also at the ready to jot down the child's eventual name, just in case.

She had just come from church, her ever loyal second daughter following close behind her, the younger woman as silent and unassuming as her mother was loud and domineering. And as they made their way toward the birthing room, just outside of which both father and son held vigil, Erik laid eyes upon the old woman for what he believed to be the very first time in his young life.

Her brows were set in a permanent scowl, her tiny gray eyes so narrowed they were almost shut. Her little grandson imagined if she stared long and hard enough at a certain object—a leaf, a piece of kindling, the house—she could set it ablaze. Her lower lip jutted out and right smack in the middle of it was a pea-sized wart with a few coarse hairs sticking out of it (Erik had an overwhelming urge to tug on the foul thing). She had no teeth to speak of, and when she did speak in her harsh, screeching, phlegm-coated voice, a raging torrent of spit and bits of food issued forth like a glorious display of wet fireworks. Add to it all the black and ominous cross of ash prominently displayed on the wrinkled forehead.

She was, by far, the most frightening thing young Erik had ever seen.

"Where's _her_ mask?" he said, wondering why he was forced to hide his face while creatures like the old woman were allowed to roam free. It was so unfair!

Aldric heard the boy's reaction and whacked the impudent child on his head. That ought to teach him a thing or two about asking improper questions.

But Erik was just getting started.

"Papa?" he said. "Where do babies come from?"

Aldric felt a sense of dread creep up and down his spine. He had to tread carefully, especially where Erik was concerned. "Uh, from their mama's belly," he said.

"Is that where I came from, too?"

"Yes."

"But how did I get in there?"

Aldric opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. How _did_ babies get in there? How could he explain it without resorting to coarse language or, heaven forbid, demonstrating?

"You started off as a little speck, and then you grew and you grew until you got too heavy that your mama's belly couldn't hold you anymore." Aldric looked mighty pleased with himself for coming up with that.

"How did I get out?"

Just like that, Aldric's self-satisfied smirk was wiped off his handsome face. "Uh, she pushed you out."

"How?"

Blasted kid with his blasted questions. "I don't know. It's a woman's secret how she does it."

"But where did I come out?"

Aldric could feel a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead by now. "Where? Uh, well, that's a secret, too."

"Is it through her—" One of the midwives had dropped a steel basin, which made a loud clattering noise that obscured the last part of Erik's question, but not enough that Aldric didn't hear it.

"WHERE THE HELL—heck—did you learn that word?" Aldric hissed in a panic, thinking maybe there was some truth after all to Carole's comments about his son having a horrid vocabulary. The boy truly was a freak.

"From you."

"_ME?_"

"I heard you say it."

"But…_WHEN?_" There was a tremor in Aldric's voice that even Erik could not ignore.

"Will you get in trouble with Mama if she finds out?

_Yes!_ "No."

"The night I saw you and Mama wrestling."

_Wrestling?_ Aldric blushed a most unbecoming shade of red.

"You were whispering to her," Erik continued. "You said you wanted to—" another basin crashed to the floor...

..."—her in the—" yet another crash...

..."—with your big—" and another. Such a ruckus in the birthing room! So much for these new midwives being competent.

Aldric swallowed. Erik couldn't be too sure, but his father seemed to be trembling. "Papa?"

"What?" he said, much louder than usual.

"Are you scared of Mama?"

"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."

"You're shaking like a leaf."

"I am not!"

"Don't worry, Papa. I won't tell."

"You'd better not!"

"SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!" Mathilde bellowed from inside the bedroom, making her husband flinch. Aldric didn't think she could hear them, but perhaps it was true what they say after all, that pregnant women have heightened senses and nothing gets past them.

"Papa?" It seemed nothing got past Erik either.

Aldric sighed. "What?"

"When you were on top of Mama, were you trying to put the little speck inside her?"

"Little speck?" Aldric found the question rather insulting and could feel his ears burning again.

"The little speck that you said would grow into a baby."

"Oh, _that_. Yes, I put it there." Aldric could not remember the last time he'd had such an exasperating conversation with anyone.

"How did you do it?"

Where in heaven's name was this discussion going? Aldric prayed the good Lord would deliver him from it.

"How, Papa?"

"It just happens, alright?" Aldric's patience was wearing thin. Would the boy ever be satisfied with his answers?

"But how?" Apparently not.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

To Aldric's relief, the child finally fell silent, lowering his masked head and casting his mismatched eyes downward. The peace and quiet was short-lived, however, as Erik looked up at his father and spoke yet again.

"Why?"

"Why what?" His son should have been born a deaf-mute.

"Why don't you know?"

It was all Aldric could do to keep from throttling the boy. But before he could yell at him to stop asking so many damn questions, the sound of a newborn's cry silenced both father and son.

The babe had finally arrived, and he was perfect. Not one bump or ridge on the smooth infant skin. Not one crack or crevice upon the tender skull. Not one bone or joint out of place at all. He was beautiful, and the whole family rejoiced. He was named Aldric, after his father, but his mother lovingly called him Ric-Ric, much to her husband's horror.

"Mama loves Ric-Ric, yes, she does!" she sang to him, even as the placenta emerged from her orifice.

All day long, Mathilde refused to part with her child, cradling him in her arms and eyeing Erik with a distrustful glare when he came near to see his new brother. Mathilde held the infant even closer to her breast as Erik approached, as though afraid his ugliness were contagious and her precious Ric-Ric might catch it. When Erik had finally left the two of them alone, Mathilde picked up from where she left off and continued her song, all the while showering her baby with kisses.

Mama sure was acting strange, Erik thought. He'd never seen her so...so...happy. And Ric-Ric was so tiny, so pink and pudgy, like a piglet. Erik remembered hearing one of the midwives comment that the child looked like both his parents, and Erik wondered who _he_ looked like. Turning to the full-length mirror in the upstairs hallway, he examined himself carefully—a skinny little sack of bones with an ugly masked face and eyes that didn't even match. If children were supposed to resemble their parents, how come he didn't? If he'd been born looking like a piglet, would his mama have been happy, too? Would she hug him and smother him with kisses? Would she wrap him in warm sheets and sing him to sleep? Would she lovingly call him Rik-Rik?

So many thoughts to ponder. At the moment it was impossible to concentrate on any of them, for Erik could hear a _very _one-sided conversation between his papa and the scary old woman wafting toward him from the front door. She had gone home shortly after the birth, but was back with a vengeance, ordering her son to and fro and saying something about "moving the ugly one upstairs." Erik tiptoed down a few steps, crouching on the landing to see what was going on.

A wagon stood just outside the window, attached to the saddest looking horse Erik had ever seen. Various items of furniture and luggage filled the back of the cart, and standing by the open doorway staring at the same contraption was his papa, all color drained from the man's face.

This did not bode well.

* * *

_Thanks to new reviewers BleedingHeartConservative and DaylightsShadow! =)_


	7. Chapter 6: The Tortured Artist

**Chapter 6: The Tortured Artist**

There was never enough paper in the house. After transforming his bedroom walls into a giant canvas (to which his parents were oblivious) with pieces of charred wood and coal from the fireplace as a medium, Erik began to despair for paper. He wasn't allowed outside the house, much less go all the way to the store to buy supplies. When he did ask his parents to bring home a few sheets for him each time they went out, they either forgot the simple request or ignored it altogether.

And so it happened one morning while Aldric was at work and Mathilde was visiting with an old friend in the city, taking little Ric-Ric with her, that Erik chanced upon his grandmother's treasured bible. Bound in worn black leather, it rested upon a lush red cushion high atop a wooden lectern in one corner of her bedroom.

A little over a year had passed since she had moved in, and it had taken several trips back and forth between her house and theirs before all her belongings were finally transferred to their new (and final?) dwelling place. No wonder the horse was looking more and more wretched. If he could talk, he would have cursed her to kingdom come for working him so hard.

The old woman's own house was becoming too crowded, so in an act of supreme selflessness (of which she never failed to remind the beneficiary—her eldest daughter), she gave up the place and set off for Aldric's. Never mind that she neglected to inform her unsuspecting son of her plans to move in with him.

The old woman had made the journey alone, as Eve, in a newfound bout of independence, had finally separated herself from her mother, entering a nunnery somewhere in the Northeast, effectively cutting the cord, so to speak. And so the old family home was now overrun by Carole and her ever-growing brood. Her husband, who hardly ever showed any emotion, nearly wept at the old woman's departure, so jubilant and relieved was he to finally see the back of her.

Everyone in the village called him Dais, short for _Holandais_, because he was Dutch, and because nobody knew what his real name was. Tall and broad, with an unruly mass of short salt-and-pepper curls atop a flat head, he looked as though he was constantly trying to balance a tiny flowerbed overrun by weeds. The son of a wealthy businessman, he'd spent his days in debauchery and wasted his youth on useless pursuits. He did badly at school and even worse in the family business, driving their whole shipping enterprise into the ground within months. Carole had married him, thinking he was a prize catch—young, wealthy and handsome. The old woman didn't even mind that he was a Protestant, as long as he was a rich one. But by the time their first child came along, they fared no better than a family of paupers, and Dais had to flee his native Rotterdam, away from angry relatives and bankers. These days he painted signs for a living.

Dais and his wife were grandparents now, and their daughter-in-law was perhaps the most fertile young woman in all of Normandy. No sooner had she given birth to one set of twins when the next set was already fast at their siblings' heels. And Dais, proud as he was of his eldest son's insatiable libido, secretly thanked the boy's young wife for bearing so many children in such a short period of time, thereby forcing the old woman out of her own house. Let that imbecilic son of hers be the one to put up with her for a change.

Though Aldric (not to mention his fuming wife) was completely against the move, he hadn't the heart—or the balls—to send the old woman away.

The room the old woman had claimed as her own happened to be Erik's, on the first floor. When he was born, his parents had put him there as it was the farthest bedroom from theirs and they did not want his crying waking them in the dead of night. The infant's piercing screams had gradually lessened in intensity over time, until he learned soon enough that crying would get him nowhere and that whatever it was he wanted would have to wait until morning.

The old woman abhorred stairs, saying they were bad for her knees. Likewise, she preferred the first floor bedroom as it was strategically located right next to the water closet, to which she could make frequent trips during the night. So she had seized Erik's room while the boy was moved to the vacant one upstairs, across the hall from his parents and directly above the old woman. Many a time he had looked down his window to find her outside her own, making the move official by tending her new garden and planting her magic tea leaves like a fierce feral cat spraying new territory.

Now, as Erik found himself inside her private sanctuary, he looked around in wonder, his keen senses assaulted by images of a bygone era and the distinct smell of liniment and old people. She had warned him time and time again never to come in here, and especially to keep his filthy little hands off her bible. He never would have given the thing a second thought, but because she had expressly forbidden him to touch it, well, now he was curious about it and just couldn't keep away.

The old woman was out back, sitting in her rocker under a tree by the little Cailly river, which Erik could see running along the house a few feet beyond the old woman's weeds just outside the west window. Erik was sure she was as still as a dead person even without having to check, for the squeaky old chair had the uncanny and most remarkable ability to lull her unconscious as soon as her bony backside made contact with it.

"Very handy, that rocker," the boy said to himself.

Erik positioned the chair from the old woman's writing desk underneath the wooden lectern which held the sacred book and, scrambling up it, reached forward and lifted the heavy thing from its resting place. As soon as the leather binding left its silken cushion, Erik's hold on it faltered and the holy book came tumbling down the floor with a mighty crash. Still the old woman slept on, as soundly and peacefully as a corpse with a clear conscience. Hearing her snoring through the window and heaving a sigh of relief himself, Erik regained the use of his momentarily paralyzed limbs and descended the makeshift ladder for his prize.

The book was nothing special—musty leather covering, yellowed onionskin pages with print so small it hurt to read it. It was a wonder how the old woman managed at all with her own tiny pupils. Though well-worn, the book was not moth-eaten in the least. Quite a feat for something that was perhaps as ancient as the old woman herself, and Erik remembered something his mama once said when the old woman's back was turned.

"She's older than the man who dug the river."

"And she's still alive!" Erik had marveled, earning him another cuff on the head from his father.

But maybe, Erik thought, he could add some much needed hue to his grandmother's boring old bible, like the color plates he had once seen in a costume book describing army uniforms.

It was Ric-Ric's christening at the time. There was a feast at their house and the whole family had gathered for the special occasion. Damien had brought the book with him. It was a birthday present from his father, but Damien could not have cared less for it, while Erik had willed his ungrateful cousin into giving it to him instead. What a welcome change a book would be, because all Erik ever got for his birthday was a new mask or hat to cover up his face and deformed head. That was, if anybody remembered to give him anything at all, his parents sooner cursing the day he was born than commemorating it. There were also the occasional rosaries, scapulars or little prayerbooks for Christmastide, as though his family feared the eternal damnation of his young soul and sought a good head start to save it. The costume book had been left unattended on a chair so Erik had picked it up and was engrossed soon enough. Then the sadistic Damien had snatched it away and set fire to it at once, relishing the look of horror on his cousin's face. It was, perhaps, the only time Damien was ever interested in books—when they were set ablaze.

_Ah, but he wouldn't dare burn the old woman's bible_, thought Erik with a satisfied gleam in his mismatched eyes, confident that his soon-to-be artistic masterpiece would be spared a fiery end should the dastardly Damien get his filthy claws on it. Sitting upon the rug by the fireplace, Erik took out from his pocket a piece of broken flowerpot he had found in the yard when he had dared to sneak out of the house one day. With this latest find, he proceeded to doodle all over the bible's frontispiece and flyleaf. Erik liked to draw many things in general, but held a particular fascination for human faces, perhaps because he lacked a decent one of his own.

So absorbed was he in his work that Erik failed to notice the rocking chair's squeaking had already ceased for quite some time. Stretched out on his belly, he did not see the looming figure of the befuddled and increasingly irate old woman as she searched in vain for her beloved and most treasured possession.

As the old woman's beady, accusing eyes fell on Erik's tiny form, she began to fear the worst. "You, boy!" she called out, startling him, "What have you got there?"

Her suspicions were inflamed all the more when he didn't answer and instead, scrambled to conceal something behind him. Her grandson did not think her gray eyes capable of narrowing even more, but they did so as she trod toward him and spoke in a halting rhythm that, in his mind, oddly yet amusingly matched her steps like a well-choreographed dance.

"What—have—you—done—with—my—bible?" she said, each enunciated word dripping with venom (and spit) and carrying the deadliest of threats.

The petrified boy knew the old woman was capable of murdering him on the spot. She would dump his lifeless body in the river and no one would ever come looking for him and he would never get a proper Christian burial and there goes his chance of getting admitted into Heaven.

Erik sighed in resignation, deciding that he might as well show the old woman his handiwork, even though it wasn't quite finished yet. And so he raised the book to her scrunched-up face, the brick-colored squiggles somewhat resembling a human face swimming before her incredulous and scandalized vision.

"Look, Grandmama," he beamed. "It's Jesus!"

* * *

Father Thomas Benedict passed a robed arm over his bushy gray eyebrows as he exited the confessional. After nearly thirty years in the priesthood, he was weary in body but hardly in spirit. He had his downtimes as well. Mostly, though, he loved his vocation with all his being and, if God saw fit to grant him another thirty years, he would spend it all in exactly the same way.

Except for today.

He had painstakingly listened to three confessions that morning, all of them by the same person—Monsieur Carrel, the village pervert. The son of the undertaker, the younger Carrel had a falling out with his father a few years back when the old man had caught him pleasuring himself next to a woman's naked corpse just before the funeral. Utterly horrified and disgusted, the old undertaker had thrown his son out and had told him never to show his face again or so help him God, he would sever his son's offending appendage and bury it with the next corpse that came his way.

To his credit, Monsieur Carrel had for the past twenty-four hours spied on only three women in various states of undress and touched himself only once—a vast improvement from the ten or twenty he managed before. His 'road to recovery', as he called it, was thanks to a recent epiphany, what he believed to be a message from God in the form of a very vivid dream wherein a rifle-toting avenging angel came down from the heavens and shot him in the groin. The dream had shook him to the core, though not enough to completely eradicate his 'problem'. For what was left of it, he sought the good priest's counsel.

Father Thomas Benedict, for his part, didn't think he could take any more of Monsieur Carrel extolling the virtues of the lovely Mademoiselle Debroux and the buxom Madame Sablonnier. The old priest may be a patient man, but even he found it all very exasperating.

It seemed the poor Father would not be getting a break today. He could already hear the commotion outside heading straight in his direction.

The old woman had been stunned into utter silence at the sight of what she deemed "the desecration of the Word of God". Then the deafening screeching began, followed by curse after frightful curse, further enriching Erik's already sizable vocabulary as she dragged her squirming grandson all the way to the church to "have the evil forced out" of him. Once there, she produced said book, thrusting it into the priest's bewildered hands.

"Just look at it, Father. Look!" she raved, foam forming at the corners of her mouth as Erik clawed at the bony fingers clamped around his tiny wrist. "He's got the Devil in him, Father!"

_Not again, _thought Father Thomas Benedict. He looked down at the masked child with an expression of pity on his face, remembering the day he was summoned to their house to baptize what they had referred to as a 'special case'. Before he could begin the baptismal ceremony, however, this same old woman had requested that he first perform an exorcism on the clearly bedeviled babe. It had taken the better part of the morning just trying to convince her that the child was not possessed by demons. And now she's returned, hellbent on finishing what she started all those years ago.

Sure enough, the old woman sidled up to him, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper as he inspected the so-called defilement. "Shall I get out the rope, Father?"

"Rope?" The priest started, whipping his head around to face the old woman. "Whatever for?"

"To tie him to the bed, of course, for when you begin the exorcism," she replied, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"That won't be necessary, _madame_," Father Thomas Benedict answered, slightly disturbed at the old woman's suggestion. Turning back to the drawings, he asked again, "The child did this?"

"Yes, Father, and he was proud of it, too, the little demon!"

"These are rather good," said the priest, bending down to the same level as the boy, who had stopped struggling and was now looking at him with hopeful, mismatched eyes. "Is that Jesus right there?" he pointed, and Erik nodded with all the enthusiasm of a vindicated artist.

_Mon Dieu_, the old woman muttered in disbelief.

"_Madame_, I don't see what all the fuss is about," the priest said, silently praying for more patience as he straightened and handed her back the book. "Just try to keep your bible out of arm's reach next time."

Needless to say, the old woman was not very pleased. The priest had gently but firmly showed her to the door even as she insisted that something drastic ought to be done about 'the demon-child'.

"I knew there was evil in you the moment I laid eyes on your sorry hide!" she thundered at her grandson, who still twisted about in her vice-like grip as they entered the house. She could not keep a teacup steady for two seconds and yet her hold on his wrist was as unyielding as a manacle.

Mathilde, who was draped on the sofa after tucking little Ric-Ric in bed for his afternoon nap, heard the all too familiar cawing and sat up at the assault on her ears. She had just arrived from her trip into the city and was thrilled upon discovering the two people she least wanted to see were nowhere in sight. Her elation was short-lived, however, and as her mother-in-law and her firstborn son materialized in the doorway, her mood plummeted to its usual dour depths.

"You good-for-nothing son of a Protestant," the crone grumbled, not caring in the least that her daughter-in-law could hear her. Outside, it began to overcast as rain clouds gathered and a summer storm threatened to pour. "What you need is a proper and very thorough exorcism, that's what. Six hundred genuflections a day, everyday, for as long as it takes to get that monstrous head of yours right. My own grandmother, God rest her soul, had me exorcised way back when, and not a day goes by I don't thank her for all the good it's done me since."

Erik could not even begin to imagine what the old woman must have been like before the evil was supposedly driven out of her.

"I had many demons," she revealed, easing her hold on her grandson as her squinty eyes misted in remembrance of her grueling and tormented childhood.

_Had? _thought Erik, sitting down at the table and bracing himself for a long afternoon of fire and brimstone speeches and raining spit.

"So many demons! And they were the worst among the lot—Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero. That Nero was a bad seed, indeed."

Erik gingerly rubbed his sore wrist, paying no attention to the crazy old woman whatsoever.

"But the rites released me from them!" she raged on, bringing down her mighty fist upon the table and startling the boy, who was now eyeing the stairs and getting ready to bolt from the room at the first opportunity. "My knees may have been badly broken from months of endless genuflections, but I would have you endure it as well if only to free you from the Devil's clutches! And if the parish priest refuses to do it, so help me God, I will perform the exorcism myself!"

Thunder boomed at her words as the lightning cast eerie shadows on the old woman's craggy face, her religious zeal anything but inspiring.

His grandmother's impassioned speech had Erik fleeing toward the safety of his bedroom at once, slamming the door behind him and bolting it shut. He couldn't tell whether it was just his imagination, but the thunder seemed much louder now than he'd ever heard it, and every rumble sent a wave of pulsating panic through his heart. But as long as the door was locked and stood between him and the old woman, he was safe. She couldn't get to him and make him do all those horrible genuflections and break his knees in the process. He could just stay in his room forever and never come out. Maybe his mama and papa would take pity on him and bring him a bit of cheese to nibble on so he wouldn't starve to death. He could collect rainwater so he wouldn't get thirsty either. And he could always relieve himself outside the window as well. Lord knows the old woman's weeds needed fertilizing anyway.

Yes, Erik would simply stay put.

* * *

The old woman's eldest daughter bore the brunt of her complaints, and Carole could not help but think that it was retribution somehow, that having to put up with the old woman's troubles was punishment for occupying her house. Still, the long-suffering Carole came over shortly after the bible incident thinking she had the solution to her old mother's misery.

Though she harbored not the slightest bit of affection for her nephew and wanted as little to do with him as possible, she nevertheless sided with him and thought that the old woman had finally snapped, going on about demons and exorcism rites as though she herself were possessed. _Rubbish_, Carole thought, and once at the house, she took out a paintbrush, three small canisters of tempera, which she had swiped from her unsuspecting sign-painter husband, and a curious thing called _Little Folks' Painting Book_ that she hoped was thick enough to last Erik all summer long. For now, at least, it was enough to lure him out of his self-imposed isolation.

Erik's mismatched eyes lit up at the sight of it, and he made to hug his aunt at the waist, but she held him at bay.

"Yes, I know," she said. "Just go play with it already and leave your grandmama alone."

Taking the book, Erik toddled over to his favorite spot on the hearth. Carried in this way, pressed against his chest, it looked as though the book itself had sprouted a masked head and limbs. And the paints! Such fascinating colors—red, blue and yellow. Could there possibly be a more ingenious invention than paints?

Erik opened the book to the first page, and the next, and the next, all the while his expression going from elation to curiosity to dismay. "There are drawings in it," he stated, holding the book up for his aunt to see.

"How perceptive of you," she said, not bothering to look.

"I don't understand," Erik continued, oblivious to his aunt's mounting rage. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Carole exhaled through her nose in irritation, mentally berating her brother for fathering such a stupid child, and overlooking the fact she had produced three of her own. "You're supposed to color the pictures."

"Why?"

Carole stiffened. "What do you mean, 'why'? It's a coloring book! That's what coloring books are for!"

"Oh. In that case, I don't want it," Erik said as though dismissing a loathed vegetable dish.

So the child was stupid _and_ impudent! Carole quaked in her anger, thinking to slap the impudence right out of him.

Again, Erik spoke. "I don't want to color someone else's drawings. Give me some clean paper instead. I'll draw my own."

She left him there on the floor, taking with her the faint scent of cotton wool that permanently clung to her from the textile mill where she worked. Erik wondered if she was all right, because her nostrils flared and she was breathing heavily as she exited. Maybe she caught cold all of a sudden. Mama did say it was going around lately and "you'd better not catch it and infect us all or I'll cut your throat!" In the meantime, Erik would have to content himself with what's been given to him. Perhaps when Aunt Carole was feeling better, she would get him a fresh ream of lovely blank paper.

Erik sighed and colored, humming a nice little made-up tune as he worked.

In the old woman's room, Carole conceded that perhaps an exorcism _would_ do the child some good after all.

* * *

_A/N: _ The Little Folks' Painting Book_, said to be the first ever coloring book in history, was published in 1879. But for the purposes of this story, let's just say the book was already around during Erik's childhood. ;) Oh, and up until the 1930s, coloring books were originally designed to be painted, not colored with crayons. _

_Thank God for Wikipedia. :P_


	8. Chapter 7: The Birthday Boy's Wish

_Sorry for the long delay. The weather was being uncooperative._

_

* * *

_  
**Chapter 7: The Birthday Boy's Wish**

Erik was five years old today, and he thought he was going to die.

He couldn't breathe. The poisoned air choked him, making him dizzy and disoriented, his mismatched eyes watering in irritation. Scratching at his throat, he staggered toward the window, rattling it with an urgency that nearly tore it from its hinges. The unconscious old woman didn't even stir at the noise.

The icy breeze blasting through the now open shutters was never more welcome to the shivering boy than in that moment. Gulping copious amounts of the life-saving winter air, Erik came to the conclusion that he would rather freeze to death any day than endure another night cooped up in the old woman's bedchamber and confronting his own mortality each time she passed gas in her sleep. Any moment now, as was the case a couple of times earlier, she would wake and bark at him to shut the window and quit playing with it or "do you want to freeze to death, you imbecile?"

Savoring the fresh air just a wee bit longer, Erik finally relented, taking his sweet time drawing the shutters back in place and, grumbling, deposited himself on the makeshift pallet at the foot of the old woman's bed. He found his current situation most unacceptable, indeed, and he sighed in frustration. All he wanted was to enjoy the day after Christmas—his first night as a five-year-old—curled up in his own bed, in his own room, where it was quiet and peaceful and the air smelled good. Where he was free to remove his mask and free of the old woman and her snoring and her vile vapors. Not to mention the coughing fit he suffered inhaling the ash under the old woman's bed. She insisted on collecting the remains of the traditional Yule log they had burned in the hearth on Christmas Eve. But because of her current condition, Erik was ordered to do so and sprinkle the cinders under the bed himself.

"Make sure they're no longer hot!" she'd yelled at her stooped grandson from her place atop the bed. "You'll burn the house down, you little cretin!"

The old woman had said all this was to protect the house from lightning and the Devil. Erik wondered if there was something he could sprinkle on his person to protect himself from the old woman.

Why, oh, why did he have to be here at night anyway? Couldn't he just stay with her during the day, then leave when it was time for bed and simply come back the following morning?

"Absolutely not!" Aldric had put his foot down the previous day in a rare show of authority. "It's at night she's most vulnerable. It's dark. She could...bump into things," he had said, his thin dark mustache quivering with every cryptic word.

Erik knew that look. The involuntary twitch meant his father was recalling some very bad memories not likely to be forgotten anytime soon, and that was never a good sign.

"Besides," Aldric had continued, staring long and hard at Erik, "you're the one that caused this whole mess. It's only fitting."

"But Papa—!" Erik had protested, only to be silenced by his father mid-sentence.

"You will stay with her until she's _fully_ recovered—"

"But how long's _that_ going to take?" It was Erik's turn to interrupt Aldric. Undaunted, the man had merely continued to enumerate the boy's latest responsibilities.

"You will fetch things for her. You will do everything she says..."

Crossing his arms, Erik's pout increased with every word his father spoke.

"...You will assist her to the lavatory—"

"Nooooooo!"

"And if she gets up at night and starts to wander off in her sleep, just take her by the hand—gently!—and lead her back into bed."

_Wander off in her sleep?_ Erik thought back on his father's instructions from the day before as he shifted on the uncomfortable pallet. He could hear the old woman snoring above him, and could not quite grasp what his father had meant. How could anyone possibly wander off while they were asleep?

_How absurd_ , Erik said to himself.

* * *

_The day before Christmas... _

Erik expertly readjusted and fastened his mask, a task he had mastered long before he'd learned to tie his bootlaces. Since growing out his hair, he'd managed to conceal the deformity on the right side of his head rather easily. No longer was there a need for a modified pillowcase over it, and now he had graduated to a regular face mask.

Atop his dark head he pulled over an ill-fitting winter cap—to go with his ill-fitting clothes—to fend off the chilly December morning. He'd had to make do since Damien's hand-me-downs had stopped arriving. Christophe and his wife were having a gaggle of babies in rapid succession, so the hand-me-downs were now reserved for them and Erik's basic clothing needs were anything but a priority.

Ill-fitting or no, it barely mattered. For today, Erik was going on his first excursion. Not counting that incident in the summer when the old woman had hauled him off to church for an impromptu exorcism, today was to be Erik's first official foray into town. He was to accompany her yet again, this time to market in order to purchase food and other items for _le reveillon_, the grand Christmas supper after the midnight Mass. Her daughter Eve used to go with her, but since her departure for the nunnery, the old woman now found herself in need of an assistant to help her carry the groceries when the horse was feeling especially cranky and refused to be taken along.

Once, she had dragged her daughter-in-law with her, and Mathilde had no choice but to reluctantly leave Ric-Ric at home under Erik's supervision. Upon their return, however, Erik was nowhere to be seen, while Ric-Ric was perched on a window ledge, half his backside hanging out, as he played with a small flowerpot and happily munched on soil. By some miracle he didn't topple over and crack his skull. Mathilde had given Erik a sound spanking when he finally did show himself, and his pleas of having to answer nature's call fell on deaf ears. He had reasoned that his baby brother was enjoying himself anyway, and that earned him even more whacks to his already sore bottom.

Never again did Mathilde leave Ric-Ric in anyone else's hands, so taking her to market now was out of the question.

"At the rate she's mollycoddling him," the old woman had said, "that child will never learn to walk."

When the old woman had ordered Aldric to get dressed and go into town with her, he'd disappeared all of a sudden and for the rest of the morning no one knew where on earth he'd run off to. Muttering a deadly expletive, the old woman's beady eyes eventually fell upon Erik, who was sitting quietly by the hearth admiring the colorful little clay figures displayed in the Nativity scene. Under normal circumstances, she would have gone alone. But the special occasion called for special recipes and more items and ingredients to buy and, strong as she was, she couldn't possibly carry them all by herself.

Thus, Erik found himself, for the first time in his life, getting ready to go out. His clothes may have been a tad too tight, his boots a tad too small, yet that did not stop him from jumping about and making a racket, waking the baby in the process and earning him a yell or two from his mother.

The old woman wasn't exactly what he would call ideal company for the trip, either, but Erik wouldn't miss it for the world. He nearly even knocked her over, barreling into her in his rush to get out the door.

Screeching a curse in her grandson's general direction, the old woman straightened and made her way to a frozen dirt road that led up a small snow-covered hill and down onto the Route de Dieppe, which ran parallel to the Cailly, sandwiching the house between main road and river.

"Are we not taking Henri with us?" Erik gave up on the snow he was playing with and caught up with the old woman.

"No," she huffed. "He's not in the mood."

Erik gazed back at the house, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the lazy horse, who must have been in the barn sleeping. Erik still could not believe his parents had thought to name him after the miserable creature. _It's not even a good horse_, he grumbled to himself. Henri was a short-legged gelding who did nothing all day but lounge in the corral and look morose. Of course, Erik could scarcely blame him. Having the old woman for a mistress, who _wouldn't_ be sullen on a regular basis?

The frenzy of activity in town was a glorious sight to behold for any child. But for Erik, it was like witnessing a miracle, and to be right in the midst of it was a dream come true. The sun was out, and it was a clear and bright morning despite the frosty atmosphere. Even the dreary smokestacks of the textile mills a short distance away could not dampen the festive mood all around. Wreaths adorned every door, all manner of Christmas baubles decorated every window, and the heavenly sound of bells and carols filled the air and dispersed like the foggy breaths of the villagers. People clad in their winter best went about their business, running errands and doing last-minute shopping. Ruddy faces hid beneath thick scarves, and not one of them thought it unusual or paid any mind to the little boy whose face was covered, too.

Erik felt—dare he even think it—almost normal.

Pretty soon that covered face found itself pressed against a shop window, coveting the shiny new toys displayed within. It would be nice, Erik thought, to play with real toy soldiers and building blocks for a change, rather than twigs, twine and rocks. The tinkling of a bell caught his attention, and he turned to see a boy and a girl, both about twelve, exit the next shop. Both pairs of arms were laden with packages, though they somehow managed to hold out and compare their prized purchases, the girl reading aloud a passage or two from hers. Erik sniffed, the scent of fresh paper and leather bindings reaching his nostrils as the older children passed him on the sidewalk. There was a bookshop next door!

Another tinkling of a bell, another swinging of a door, and Erik's sensitive ears caught the discordant yet hauntingly beautiful strains of a violin being tuned. Next to this music shop was an art supplies store with every tool and shade of color a budding little artist could ever need, and next to that a haberdasher's and modiste's, displaying all the latest fashions for men and women, as well as for boys and girls. Next, a cobbler's shop, shoes of every size and style lining the shelves inside.

Erik had never wanted so many things in all his life. His birthday was in two days, after all, and it was as if the wish list of his mind had materialized before him, and the things he never even knew he wanted had now become the direst of necessities. He imagined if he put together the cost of all of them, it would amount to quite a vast fortune, which he knew he didn't have. Perhaps this is what his papa had in mind when Erik had once overheard the man tell his wife that the big town was where people went to go bankrupt, and the eavesdropping boy had asked what the word meant. For some reason, Erik remembered the story of Christ's temptation in the desert—one of the countless from the bible that had been drilled into him since the old woman had moved in with them. He realized that, had he been in Jesus' place and the Devil had tempted him with everything he saw before him now, Erik would have easily given in and doomed his soul for all eternity.

As if that wasn't temptation enough, the most savory aroma of sweets, freshly baked bread and pastries drifted from the local chocolatier and patisserie across the street, making Erik's mouth water. Next door to these, a butcher plied his trade. And right outside his shop the old woman yelled at her grandson, who was still on the opposite side of the lane, to quit fogging up every shop window he saw and get his slow, ugly carcass across already. She had just bought an extra large ox's tongue, plus an oxtail to make into a soup.

"Here, take them," she ordered, shoving the newly severed body parts into Erik's arms as he made his way toward her.

"I'm not eating _these_," Erik blanched. Why couldn't they have ham or turkey instead, like normal people?

"Oh yes, you are," the old woman's voice dropped an octave, the sound of which was as potent a threat as any she could have uttered. "A grain of food wasted is a day spent in Hell. Get that through your thick, misshapen skull."

Completing their purchases, they had all but made it safely out of the market, if it weren't for Monsieur Duperey and his motley collection of knickknacks. The old woman had forgotten about him. Otherwise, she would've taken a different route and avoided him altogether. The fool was insufferable, plying his pots and baskets with unnatural skill and wheedling the most resistant customer like the Devil himself tempting Christ. The old woman swore the man must be at least fifty percent Gypsy. A born salesman, Duperey would have gladly spent an eternity in Hell if it meant he could make a fortune selling ice-cold refreshments there. He wouldn't take no for an answer this time, either, proffering every product he carried and enticing the old woman's more receptive grandson to buy a whistle or a marionette.

"No whistles!" the old woman snapped at Erik. "I'll not have my peace and quiet blighted by your accursed whisting!"

"I completely understand, _madame_," Duperey simpered, and the old woman turned her suspicious gaze back at him. "So the boy's got a problem with discipline, has he? Sorry behavior, is it?"

The old woman's gray eyes no longer narrowed, and the rat-faced man knew he was finally getting somewhere with her. "Can't seem to stay out of trouble, can he?" Monsieur Duperey leered. So close did he come that Erik could see the tiny knots in the man's unkempt blond beard.

The old woman found herself agreeing with every word, and Duperey went in for the kill. "Ah, but perhaps all he needs is a little...diversion. You know what they say about idle minds being the Devil's playground and all."

The old woman's eyes widened in realization at this, and the crafty Monsieur Duperey delivered the coup de grâce. "If the boy had something to occupy his time and his hands with, the quieter life will be for the both of you."

And so Erik became the proud and overjoyed owner of a new jigsaw puzzle, a sheet of slate and several sticks of chalk. He gratefully accepted the goodies from Monsieur Duperey, leaving the butcher's package on the ground and the old woman to pick up the rudely discarded parcel with a grunt. Grinning from ear to ear, even though no one could see it, Erik ran as fast as he could up the Route de Dieppe and up the hill on the way back, hardly able to wait till they got home and he could finally tinker with these latest contraptions.

The old woman trudged along behind her grandson and, arriving at the top of the gentle slope, hollered at him to be careful with the other groceries he still carried. The stupid boy kept skipping and bouncing everywhere, he was bound to trip and fall.

Just as the old woman was thinking this, her own foot had struck a rather sizable rock embedded in the ground. Arms flailing desperately in the wind, down she went tumbling, along with the onions and the radishes and the ox parts. Down the hill they rolled, a colorful avalanche of produce and person, past the halfway point, past a stunned and dumbfounded Erik. The old woman's undignified scream for help finally snapped the boy into action, and he scrambled, with all the speed he could muster, to rescue the runaway tongue.

Later in the day, Erik found himself on the receiving end of a very serious scolding from his father. The old woman had been assisted into the house by a passing pig farmer, himself an old man, who'd had no choice but to place her in the back of his cart among his pigs, Antony and Cleopatra. The old woman yelled at the top of her lungs, blaming Erik for rushing to save an ox's tongue before his own grandmother.

"But a grain of food wasted is a day spent in Hell," Erik said, holding his arms out for emphasis.

Hysterical and shouting profanities, the old woman was given an extra dose of laudanum by the doctor to put her out cold, more for the family's sake than hers. He found it rather remarkable that, for someone of her age, and considering the relatively long distance she'd covered on her downhill journey, she suffered only a few minor bumps and scrapes, spared largely by the numerous layers of clothing she wore. Any other elderly lady would have broken a hip or doomed herself to a bedridden life for the remainder of her days. Like the rest of the villagers, the doctor had heard of the old woman's legendary strength. If he had any doubt as to the veracity of that legend, it was all put to rest by the proof now snoring in front of him.

She had sprained her ankle, though, and would most likely be unable to walk for at least two weeks. Lots of bed rest, the doctor prescribed, and said an almost inappropriately cheerful "_Joyeux No__ë__l_" on his way out the door, smiling inwardly at the thought of yet another comical story to tell friends over drinks later that evening.

* * *

"Yaaah!"

Erik was jolted awake. Clutching his heart and attempting to slow his breathing, the child ever so slowly raised himself from his pallet to take a peak over the old woman's bed, only to come face to face with her bandaged foot. She appeared so serene, not at all like she'd just been screaming herself hoarse. Perhaps Erik had only been dreaming. But no, the scream had sounded all too real, he thought, as he lowered himself yet again.

Scarcely had he fallen back asleep, however, when there it was once more.

"YAAAAH!"

Night terrors. The old woman was having night terrors and scaring the wits out of Erik in the process. His papa never said anything about her screaming in her sleep. What next? Would she start walking around, too? Erik was beside himself with uncertainty and not just a little bit of fear. Should he wake her? Should he go back to sleep and pretend nothing was amiss?

"HYAAAAAAAH!"

Squeezing his pillow over his head, Erik did the only thing he could at that moment—he started praying for dear life, imploring God to save him, questioning God why this was happening and was he being punished for something he did? And if it wasn't too much to ask, to please silence the old woman once and for all...

"HUNNNNGGG...HAK...HAAAKKK..."

...and that whatever it was that was attacking her in her dreams would finally devour her whole and put an end to her misery.

"HMMM...Uh...Why, _merci_, _Monsieur le commodore_."

Erik lifted the pillow from his face to make sure he'd heard her right. The serene expression was back in place, and though Erik was still very much perturbed, at least God had partially answered his prayer. And whoever this commodore person was, Erik wanted to thank him, too.

The relief was short-lived, however, and the thing Erik feared the most was now happening at that very moment, for he heard a pair of slippered feet dragging across the floor, and they were walking away from him.

"Grandmama?" Erik called out, his small voice slightly panicked as he watched her silhouette reach for the latch on the door.

"They aren't here," she muttered, fumbling with the door handle. "Find them, Inspector."

Clearly, the old woman wasn't herself. With admirable resolve, Erik approached her to lead her back to bed, just like his papa had instructed. But as he reached out and grasped her by the arm, she was suddenly upon him, eyes blazing, both seeing yet unseeing, as she seized Erik by the shoulders and shook him like a ragdoll.

"Thief!" she hissed, spraying the hapless child's mask with saliva. He tried to disengage himself from her stony hands and appeal to her reason, but all rationality seemed to have been left behind and lost on the hillside two days before.

"Give them to me!"

"I don't have them!" Erik cried, not having the slightest idea what it was he was supposed to have taken. "Stop it, Grandmama! Please!" She had backed him into the bed, and soon she had him pinned beneath her, her strength quite impressive for an elderly woman who'd just sprained her ankle falling down a hill. And Erik thought, if her flatulence didn't kill him, her sleepwalking definitely would.

"My seeds! Where are my watermelon seeds?"

The old woman bore down on him, and Erik could just make out the dark shapes on the nightstand. Reaching for the largest one, he managed to grab it by the handle and, hoisting it with all his might, he swung the bulky object right into the side of the old woman's head. A resounding metallic toll, not unlike the pealing of the church bell, filled Erik's ears, and his assailant collapsed on the bed, knocked out cold by his weapon of choice.

Shaking from the ordeal, Erik sprang from the bed and turned from the old woman's supine form to the one in his hand that saved his life. A sliver of light from the doorway illuminated it, and he saw that it was a pitcher, which had fortunately been emptied of its contents earlier in the evening, else Erik might never have been able to wield it the way he did. But before he could even process the significance of the growing lamplight shining upon the brass container, his father's barely suppressed fury rang from the doorway and throughout the room in a harsh whisper.

"What the hell is going on here? I heard noises!"

"I was thirsty," Erik lied, as Aldric surveyed the scene before him.

The boy stood with a water pitcher in his hand, and behind him, the old woman had never looked more tranquil in slumber. And God in Heaven! Was that a ghost of a smile on her lips? If Aldric had a franc for every time the old woman smiled, why, he'd be in debt. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, and shooting one final look of warning at Erik, he turned and shut the door behind him, leaving his son alone in the darkness once more.

Finally releasing a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, Erik returned the pitcher to the nightstand and inspected the damage. Good Lord, had he killed her? Was the old woman dead? Did he take her by the arm a bit too roughly? Perhaps he should have been more gentle, like his papa had said, then she wouldn't have reacted so violently. What in the world was wrong with her anyway? _And she thinks _I'm_ the one that's possessed_, thought Erik to himself.

Scooting a little closer, he checked to see her chest's rise and fall, or lack thereof. Soon, the familiar snoring picked up its usual rhythm, and Erik didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that the old woman had actually survived.

Laying back down on his pallet, Erik didn't think he'd ever be able to fall asleep now. His frazzled nerves were still on high alert, and his deep breathing did nothing to soothe them whatsoever. He had just about enough life-threatening excitement for one night, and he thought, if he could have only one wish for his fifth birthday, it's that he live to see his sixth.


End file.
